Timber and Lua

Timber and La exists in duality as both original, innovative collaboration between Lily Ho ng and Vi Khi N o and their self-translations of said work. Comprised of ten short experimental stories, Timber and La is written in three different languages: Vietlish, Vietnamese, and English. Similar to Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov, who translated their own work (from English to French and from Russian to English, respectively), Ho ng and N o extend that makeshift tradition by hybridizing their translation to graft the genetic material of one language (English) and the genetic material of another language (Vietnamese) to produce a new literary diasporic genre. From love story to the speculative to fairy tale, these ten stories accentuate Ho ng and N os dynamic, eccentric range. Timber and La coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon (19752025), as a diasporic literary contribution and commemorative celebration.